Every school in Collina d'Oro gains Fourchette Verte certification

The municipal school institute of Collina d'Oro has completed the Fourchette Verte Junior certification process. The award was extended in May, during a ceremony, to the canteen of the primary school in Montagnola, the last facility still outside the scheme. Since then all pupils aged three and above receive meals meeting the nutritional standards promoted by the programme.

Fourchette Verte is a quality label for collective catering, born in the canton of Geneva and later adopted across much of Switzerland. The Junior version applies specifically to places serving meals to children and young people, and sets criteria on the balance of menus, the presence of vegetables and fruit, the use of salt and fats, the drinks offered and the conditions in which the meal is eaten. Certification is not acquired once and for all: it involves periodic checks and must be renewed.

In Ticino the label is run by the cantonal association and is found in school canteens, childcare facilities, homes for the elderly and public restaurants. For a municipality certification does not end with signing a document: it means adapting menus, training kitchen staff and keeping the documentation required for subsequent inspections.

The head of the institute, Sara Canepa, expressed satisfaction with the outcome, which in her view confirms that food education is an integral part of the school's educational project.

What matters in practice is that the certification covers the institute as a whole rather than a single site. It means a child moving from nursery to primary school, and from one site to another within the municipality, encounters the same criteria throughout the municipal compulsory schooling cycle, without the quality of the meal depending on the building their class happens to occupy.